The Bipolar Lisp Programmer - <AUTHOR> http://www.lambdassociates.org/blog/bipolar.htm# <comment><USER3> Previous discussions:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20012>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=78739>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=187867>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=859669>

All have comments.

<comment><USER4> Completely tangential:

What is the reason for posting this reply? I think I understand the sentiment -- it gets tiring to see something repeatedly. The reason I ask tho is it comes off as a bit dismissive, but I consider re-discussing a post every 1.5 years to not be too terrible, as: a) some people may have missed the first posting b) lots of new people can now get exposure and c) we have all changed a bit in that time and have new perspectives perhaps.

I know that discussion of stuff like this really helps people understand the material better, so I would personally prefer a bit of repeat on the good reads, to keep people up to speed than a keeping repeats to minimum.

I can also see another side -- this is to point people to previous discussions for the reason of them benefitting from what has already been said. I agree with this motive. I just think it would be better if there was a way to present it which has a bit less dismissive of a feel to it.

Anyway, I don't have a great solution in mind, more just exploring the idea. Cheers.

<comment><USER3> Upvoted, because it's a pertinent question.

a. Yes, it's tiring to see the same thing repeated. As a hacker, repetition, and hence wasting time, is something I try to avoid.

b. Yes, it's nice to present classic items to the newer members of the community. That's of value

c. Without reference to the previous discussions the same points will be made over and over again. See item (a) above.

d. There is value in the previous discussions. It would be a shame to see it wasted.

In short, I don't have a problem with things being reposted occasionally, but I'd like to leverage the existing backlog of discussions. Regarding sounding dismissive:

e. I don't have time to word-craft things endlessly, and sometimes I don't get the nuances right. It takes me almost no time to create the cross-references - the time is consumed in trying not to offend people. Sometimes there's not enough time for both.

<comment><USER4> _a. Yes, it's tiring to see the same thing repeated. As a hacker, repetition, and hence wasting time, is something I try to avoid._

I concur with this in general, but also suggest that repetition is a cornerstone of learning. Many ideas must be revisited several times before full understanding takes effect. This specific type of repetition is not wasteful repetition. It may not be you job to teach people, but I highly doubt getting in the way of others gaining understanding is your goal either.

 _e. I don't have time to word-craft things endlessly, and sometimes I don't get the nuances right. It takes me almost no time to create the cross- references - the time is consumed in trying not to offend people. Sometimes there's not enough time for both._

Fair enough. Seeing as how you are very frequently the person who posts the cross references (which btw, I really appreciate) I would like to propose this as a template for future "this is a repeat" posts (I certainly hope other jump in if there is a better way of putting it than my template):

This article is something of a classic here on HN. There have been some good discussions on it previously (see below). The comments in those articles may help provide some perspective for the discussion here.

$LINKS

<comment><USER5> _> This specific type of repetition is not wasteful repetition._

If the repetition doesn't link to previous discussions, it definitely _is_ wasteful.

It's like adding a comment without having at least skimmed through the already existing comments.

<comment><USER4> I don't know... Your statement assumes the entire concept of discourse is to say things in the minimal number of bytes or words or whatever. This may be true in code or maths, where less verbosity makes the point better, but I am somewhat convinced the point of most discourse is to disseminate understanding.

Since it is people who do the understanding, some repetition, while wasting bytes or words[1], certainly helps maximize reader comprehension. Even math and CS journal papers quote things, not just put pointers. That is wasteful repetition don't you think?

I look at it as an optimization problem. There are at least two variables -- number of words and reader comprehension[2]. The goal is information transfer between people. To minimize or maximize any one of those variables may result in non-optimal information transfer. Instead there may need to be some repetition rather than pointers for some things.

[1] There are serious questions at this point whether at the scale of HN discussions there is such a thing as limited resources for data storage, bandwidth, etc (and given the level of intellect here, even reading time is almost trivial for a lot of posts).

[2] There are lots of confounding variables, such as the intelligence and prior knowledge of any given reader, the eloquence of the writer, the complexity of the point being made etc.

<comment><USER5> _> Your statement assumes the entire concept of discourse is to say things in the minimal number of bytes or words or whatever._

No, that's not my assumption at all.

I find it very useful if someone summarizes previous stuff, or reformulates hard-to-understand (e.g. badly worded) previous comments.

However, you should do that consciously. There's no sense in writing a comment that essentially just repeats what others already have written in better words than you'd ever do. Doing that is a waste of time not only for you (the writer) but also for all the readers. And it happens a lot, simply because people are too lazy to skim though the previous discussion.

<comment><USER4> Some people gain insight and understanding by trying to explain the material to others. Maybe they think they are saying something different and need to have the sameness pointed out. Perhaps they just think reiterating the point will help others understand by seeing it again.

The above may be wastes of your time or energy or limited word count, but they are not wasteful to others (in fact, the opposite is true -- someone may actually be benefitting!). This is my point: what is wasteful to you may be beneficial to others.

You can downvote it, or wait until stories have been around for a bit so others will have sorted for you (and only read the top comments of course).

<comment><USER5> _> Perhaps they just think reiterating the point will help others understand by seeing it again._

This is of course possible, and I don't object that _as long as they know they are reiterating_. However, this is only possible if people at least skim over previous posts, which is usually not the case, and which is why hints to previous discussions are not only helpful but necessary to avoid wasting time.

 _> This is my point: what is wasteful to you may be beneficial to others._

Repeating something for didactic reasons is sometimes indeed no waste of time for the writer. However, if the writer then publishes this, despite other people already wrote that stuff up in a much better way, that person _wastes the time of the readers_ by filling up the comments with, let's face it and call it by its name, garbage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've become really disillusioned with clinical psychology because of things like this. There are certainly people with specific personality types. In this instance, we have brilliant people who don't like to follow other people's arbitrary rules, and are attracted to new information. There are also certain people who will stay up for a week at a time, binging on cocaine and meth and driving to Mexico without sleeping and then becoming nearly suicidal for a few weeks after that.

The first person has a lisp-like personality. The second person has bipolar disorder. The two sort of resemble one another, but in the lisp programmer's case, they aren't doing anything really harmful to themselves or anyone else. They aren't hurting anyone, they aren't hurting themselves seriously; they're just acting a little quirkily. They might be bipolar-like, but they don't have a disease like the person who goes on cocaine binges and then tries to kill himself does.

The same principle applies with ADHD. Some people literally cannot sit still for a minute, and will disrupt every class they're in because they simply cannot pay attention to the work. This behavior is a problem for themselves and others. However, most people have some trouble concentrating on things they find boring. It's practically tautological.

The problem is, when we start using medical disorders to describe personalities, we conflate the two. Suddenly, everyone has a disease. This isn't a problem in itself, but we tend to try to fix these diseases with medication. If we try to give every lisp programmer some lithium to cure his bipolar behavior, he's going to become substantially less brilliant (lithium taken early on tends to knock off a few IQ points). If we give him adderall to treat his supposed ADHD, he might end up getting addicted to amphetamine.

I think we really need to accept the fact that some brilliant people are going to have problems no matter what, and they are fundamentally part of their personality. I don't think teaching a lisp programmer Python is going to make him write code more consistently and still write code that's just as beautiful. I don't think we can slice the "tortured" part of "tortured genius" off without cutting off some of the "genius" with it.

<comment><USER7> >"I've become really disillusioned with clinical psychology because of things like this."

I agree with your points about people using diagnostic jargon in conversation in a way that distorts its meaning. I'm sure that happens in other fields also, but speaking as a psychiatrist one thing that I have noticed is that it tends to make people feel like experts on mental health when that conclusion is not justified. There are, however, relatively specific technical definitions for terms like Bipolar Disorder and ADHD. This article doesn't use them, but it's not being published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Don't let this article disillusion you, because it's not about clinical psychology or by a clinical psychologist. It's by someone with some interesting observations who is mis-applying technical terms.

<comment><USER6> I wasn't really referring to the article in particular; I was more just ranting about something that I was thinking about before that the article reminded me of.

I think the problem runs a bit deeper than people thinking they're experts when they're not, though. I think when most people try to diagnose themselves, they look online for symptoms and such. If they already have some conviction in their diagnosis, they might think that they should also have other symptoms when they don't, or start noticing borderline things that they otherwise would easily ignore. Then, when they finally go to the doctor, their list of self- reported symptoms is no longer a list of what they independently noticed but a laundry list of whatever they read on webmd.

I'd be interested in hearing if you think this is actually the case, since you definitely have more experience and knowledge in it than I do. I'm basing most of this off of the personal experience of a few of my friends and the modicum of knowledge I have from a few clinical psychology classes I took in college.

<comment><USER7> >"Then, when they finally go to the doctor, their list of self-reported symptoms is no longer a list of what they independently noticed but a laundry list of whatever they read on webmd."

Sure, it happens all the time, in all areas of medicine. Not just psychiatry. The key here is that when someone says "I'm depressed," or "I have 5 of 9 criteria of a Major Depressive Episode," or "I have gout," that does not mean that the diagnostic evaluation is over. It's important to get clear examples of what people have noticed. Despite their conclusion, is this better explained by cancer, or anxiety, or a thyroid problem, or substance abuse? Like migraine, psychiatric illness is evaluated clinically rather than by imaging or lab tests, but there can be important overlaps that sometimes make these tests helpful to rule out other causes.

A patient's own conclusion is an important piece of the puzzle, but it's still just one piece.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Excellent article.

My take is that what kills Lisp is a common allergy towards anything related to so-called release management. The Lisp technology helps with it - <USER2> encourages staying within an image and putting all new stuff there. The problem is, it can and often does create an attitude "it works in my image and I don't care, you should know how to put it together by yourself or maybe you're not skilled enough". Well, it partly true. But the proponents of such elitist view tend to forget that today's software is so interdependent and relying on moving parts each of different quality, that actually we don't have the luxury of having "works for me" attitude. Even a genius can bang his head against stupid obstactes. It's not intelligent (and counter-hackish) to repeat the same mistakes again, or allow others to do that.

We as a civilisation invented cool things like semantic versioning, encapsulation, TDD & BDD. Please, Lispers, do follow this movement. Some people like creator od Quicklisp do a tremendous work in the area of release management, but are they a majority?

Sharing is part of creating. Making something shareable counts as well. Not being able to share makes people bitter, because we're social animals after all..

<comment><USER9> You read that entire article and your takeaway is a theory about why Lisp isn't popular? I got something entirely, completely, and utterly unlike that. I read an article that was about the author's students, but I recognized the same thing in myself, in people who have devoted themselves to playing Bridge full time, and many other corners of society where extremely bright people hang out.

The correlation between the personality and Lisp programming is very interesting, but I have to say that Lisp having a terrible "UI" for sharing-- if true--doesn't strike me as being connected to the article.

Maybe you could help me connect the dots between what the author is saying and what you are saying?

<comment><USER10> "You read that entire article and your takeaway is a theory about why Lisp isn't popular?"

He said 'take' (not 'takeaway'), which I would interpret to mean his viewpoint on Lisp that might be unrelated or even contrary to the article.

<comment><USER8> Exactly. Please note I'm not speaking English natively and used phrase 'my take' according to my knowledge how to use it. My point was rather a digression comparing to the original article. In fact, I sympathize with the author and I put my 2cents what IMO causes the situation described.

<comment><USER11> You used it correctly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The author is some professor using Lisp and falls into some traps. The personality he describes is not a speciality for Lisp (he may simply not know other programming community) and some of the people he observes may not really be have this kind of personailty - he really can't see since something like a programming news group only exposes a tiny bit of a personality.

It is true that in the Lisp community there are and were some highly intelligent people and some of them are not your average guy (think Stallman, Gabriel, ...) - but those were extremely productive and creative. Gabriel was the CEO of a development took company which was quite successful for some time.

I think that people exist who march what he describes, but not exclusively in the Lisp community. I also think that many in the Lisp community have much complexer personalities than what he describes.

comp.lang.lisp has long been the target for weirdos and trolls. That's one part of the problem. There are reasons for that, but I fear there is not a single explanation for the behaviour of various widely different personailities.

I have seen a lot of weirdos in other communities. Mathematics attracts some of them for example. I remember that guy who proved that PI is finite. Physics is another. I remember that guy who put a lot of effort into a presentation about water and its memory effect. A special, not that cheap device, could take advantage of that effect. That device was for sale.

</comment><comment><USER13>
        Another feature about this guy is his low threshold of boredom.
        He'll pick up on a task and work frantically at it, accomplishing
        wonders in a short time and then get bored and drop it before its
        properly finished.  He'll do nothing but strum his guitar and lie around
        in bed for several days after. That's also part of the pattern too;
        periods of frenetic activity followed by periods of melancholia, withdrawal
        and inactivity.   This is a bipolar personality.

Actually, that _also_ sounds like the prompt on a psychology exam, and the answer is "Attention Deficit Disorder".

<comment><USER14> Wow. That description fits me almost exactly.

Or, rather, it fits what I wish I could feel free to do as life cycles between these phases. What usually happens is I have to keep going to work and slogging through stuff even after I finish a productive frantic stage, and it's really really hard to do that. I get very slow. I feel down/demotivated/depressed during the down phase. Then the next frantic/excited stage hits (randomly as far as I can tell) and I work on the currently interesting feature/framework/whatever with all my waking energy until the phase suddenly fades on me. Rinse, repeat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've never written any Lisp, but after how much I related to this article I feel like I should be!

</comment><comment><USER16> I found this article extremely interesting, as I felt that I found my own personality perfectly mirrored in it. To clarify, I'm currently in my final year of high school (doing the Irish Leaving Certificate) - my entire life I have been "acing most of my assignments", indeed doing things at the last minute and doing extremely well with it.

And yes, I am not taking school seriously at all. My punctuality is terrible, I think I can honestly count on one hand the number of days I haven't been late this year (and I live close to the school). I skip classes in which I feel I am wasting my time (religion, anyone?), and have gotten several detentions, etc. because of it. In many ways, my track record in the school (I got a full scholarship for secondary schooling based on an exam in sixth grade, I was the only person in my year to have received an offer from Cambridge etc.), and resulting from that my relationship with the teachers, is the only thing that has kept me afloat in this school.

I have a huge problem with the Irish Leaving Certificate, an exam which in my opinion teaches you exactly two things: How to learn things off by heart, and how to write fast. It has nothing to do with intelligence or skill, but just the number of hours spent memorising pre-written notes, and being able to spit it out onto the page in two hours during the exam. I am utterly bored by it, and so I spend a lot of time in class on my iPhone, checking the news, reading RSS feeds, Hacker News, etc.

This frenetic burst of activity, followed by a period of "[doing] nothing but [strumming] his guitar and [lying] around in bed for several days" completely describes me, except you'd have to replace strumming the guitar with lurking on Hacker News! ;) I have never found anything wrong with that before, and to be honest, this description of being "bipolar" struck me - is there really anything wrong with this sort of behaviour?

This article certainly paints a fairly grim picture for my future university life, if my personality is truly as reflected in the article as I can see it to be at the moment!

Anyway, it was truly enlightening to have found this now, before I'm even at university - I have only now become aware of my attitude. We'll see how things pan out for me, if I'll be "scraping along the bottom" or end up on top...

(This is my first comment here, even though I have been following along for a fairly long time.)

<comment><USER17> Memorising things is a pretty important skill for a good hacker. I forget (D'oh!) which famous researcher into comp sci it was, but one of them had done a study on the "uber-programmers" (the guys who out produce normal programmers by a factor of 10 or more) and found that all of them had much better memories than average.

The real danger of being too smart in high-school is that because you can pull the answer out of your arse any time you want, you don't develop a good work ethic. And in University, not having a work ethic is almost certainly going to catch up with you. In high school I was in a streamed class (ie all the bright kids) and almost all of them came off the rails in the first year of uni when they got to the end of the year and discovered that they weren't allowed to sit the final exams because they hadn't done the 'stupid' assignments.

Naturally, being smarter even than the rest of the smart people, I sailed through first year uni. ... only to come unstuck during the _second_ year. :D

A lot of the kids you look at now and despise for their inferior intellects are going to have an easier time of it at university than you, because they've built up a work ethic, and you haven't.

You don't have to be bipolar for most of the symptoms the article talks about, just smart and lazy. You get a great idea and half complete it? Not necessarily a bipolar thing at all.

Problem is, smart and lazy won't cut it working for 'the man'.

So you might think, well, this is HN, I'll just start my own company and 'the man' can go whistle dixie!

Unfortunately, while 'the man' frowns on laziness, the free market absolutely despises it. It will hunt you down. murder you and then do unspeakable things to your corpse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Should be a must-read for hiring managers at software / web shops.

</comment><comment><USER17> Just a cynical observation. From the article:

"But also it goes with realising that a lot of human activity is really pretty pointless, and when you realise that and internalise it then you become cynical and also a bit sad - because you yourself are caught up in this machine and you have to play along if you want to get on. _Teenagers are really good at spotting this kind of phony nonsense._ "

I think that what Teenagers object to is _other people's_ phony nonsense. Or perhaps phony nonsense that is imposed upon them by external forces.

They seem more than happy enough to generate boatloads of _their own_ phony nonsense.

</comment><comment><USER19> Great article.

While the author might indeed be not quite right with psychological terms, he definitely has a point.

I read it, and (like many people here) found myself in it, so my next question was: okay, now what should I do with this?

The earlier discussion [1] here on HN has a link to comp.lang.lisp, containing some great advice [2].

Thanks a lot to RiderOfGiraffes for providing links to the earlier discussions.

[1]: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20140>

[2]: [http://coding.derkeiler.com/Archive/Lisp/comp.lang.lisp/2006...](http://coding.derkeiler.com/Archive/Lisp/comp.lang.lisp/2006-05/msg00080.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> Makes me want to restart my 5th attempt at a Clojure project.

<comment><USER21> if it helps: <http://thtatithticth.blogspot.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It was scary how much this article made me think of myself. Probably, no coincidence then that my favorite class at school was my first CS class, taught in Scheme, from SICP, and that my GPA was quite low.

<comment><USER23> Are GPAs in the US based on averaging _all_ of the marks from all of the classes in a course?

If so I'd have don't rather badly rather than getting a First - the UK system generally puts the emphasis on performance in the final year (or it least it did in ye olden tymes).

<comment><USER24> _Are GPAs in the US based on averaging all of the marks from all of the classes in a course?_

Generally, yes. There are some _ostensibly_ harder courses you can take that are weighted slightly higher (the highest grade in an honors course may be a 5, while the highest in a normal course is a 4, so it contributes more to your overall GPA).

That said, I haven't ever really heard too many complaints about this system. In my experience the level of effort required from year to year is similar, it's the type of effort that changes. For example, in a first-year math course, you might struggle because you just don't know what you're doing. By a fourth-year math course, you may know what you're doing, you just have to do a lot _more_ , and do it _better_.

<comment><USER25> _That said, I haven't ever really heard too many complaints about this system._

One obvious complaint is that an engineering student might have 50% of their GPA attributable to non-engineering grades.

<comment><USER23> What kind of non-engineering classes might there be in a engineering degree? In the UK courses are (or at least used to be - some have gone all "modular") rather narrow in focus - in the 4 year CS course I did in the 80s only one elective class was included that wasn't specifically related to maths, engineering or CS (and that was a rather enjoyable "History of Science" course).

<comment><USER25> The specific nature of non-engineering classes varies, but most science/engineering degrees in the US will require about 16 1-semester classes spread across {history, sociology, literature, etc}.

This is reduced a bit if you go to an engineering school. I only had to take 9 non-science classes (+ 4 gym classes).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


SpaceX first stage malfunctions during landing - <AUTHOR> https://clips.twitch.tv/AdventurousConcernedGazelleKappaWealth <comment><USER2> [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1070386062164283392?s=21](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1070386062164283392?s=21)

Elon: "Grid fin hydraulic pump stalled, so Falcon landed just out to sea. Appears to be undamaged & is transmitting data. Recovery ship dispatched."</comment>


Ask HN: How HN/over?points=n in URL works? - <AUTHOR>

https://news.ycombinator.com/over?points=500
As of today, I can see one post from 373 days ago, but majority is within last month. Is this a bug or a feature? AFAIR there were many more items with >500 pts. in recent months.
Also, is there a way to retrieve "best ever" posts regardless of when they were posted? <comment><USER2> Yep, use the Algolia-powered search:

[https://hn.algolia.com/#!/story/forever/prefix/0/points%3E10...](https://hn.algolia.com/#!/story/forever/prefix/0/points%3E1000)

Now what would be really cool is if you could take into account the inflation caused by the increase in number of users over the years.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great, thx!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/best](https://news.ycombinator.com/best)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Yet another cryptic HN URL, seems to display posts over a certain threshold (49 pts?) from the last 4 days.</comment></comment>


The Death of the Feed (what I read and why) - <AUTHOR> http://chrisyeh.blogspot.com/2011/04/death-of-feed.html

<comment><USER2> Maybe I'm just old, but my primary source of information is still RSS. I don't get this whole 'death of the feed' thing, are enough people really just visiting a handful of websites each day?

<comment><USER3> Well, see, enough time has passed on the tech that it is now ok to baselessly claim the death of it, much like the desktop, email, and traditional handheld gaming devices before it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I first started with long folders of bookmarks which I checked rather infrequently, thus missing lots of content. When Firefox first got Live Bookmarks, it was a huge step up. Now it redirects to my Google Reader account, which is another step up (nicer interface, and not dependent on where I am).

Any alternative to feeds will have to be a step up from that convenience for me to use it, especially since feeds are everywhere these days, thanks to standards, libraries, and better connected communities.

But then again, I don't put feeds in the same category as the other services the author mentions. They're just a transport medium for me. I use many of the same services, but often via feeds. I do, however, access most social media via other client software. But that's actually so people's pictures of cats don't fill up my reader. If I'm really interested in a person, I'll add their personal feed to my reader.

</comment><comment><USER5> Agreed that rss is no longer the only source for what I read. But the concept of feeds lives on. Friends' blogs, techmeme, hn, twitter, facebook, and personalization services can all be consumed as feeds. What has passed is the ability to consume all information available. We are all faced with increasing information overload and must seek out tools and techniques to help filter down and consume information more effectively.

As an example, some news readers offer curated top stories, as well as twitter, hackernews, reddit and facebook feeds in a single interface which is designed for easy visual scanning and efficient consumption. By customizing a news aggregator that offers more than just traditional rss feeds, it is relatively easy to stay on top of a manageable stream of information. Disclosure: I'm a developer at Pulse. <http://pulsene.ws>

</comment><comment><USER6> I love getting articles like this in my RSS feed. I agree that RSS hit a wall in terms of adoption, but it's still the most efficient way to read.

</comment><comment><USER7> I love being told that RSS is dead, and then I visit twitter for a few moments and I am overwhelmed by the retweet/tweet ratio.</comment>


Pixel Art Scaling Algorithms - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_art_scaling_algorithms

<comment><USER2> This is an interesting application of human thought, certainly, and aesthetically necessary for a lot of old games run on new emulators.

However, I often find art composed of unnecessarily-large pixels appealing: see, for instance, the favicon of bravemule.com, or the sprites from Spelunky.

<comment><USER3> Totally. The pixels were carefully composed that way on purpose. Don't mess with them.

I've always been a "pixel art" purist. It even bugs me when games try to use pixel art but get it subtly wrong. For instance, a game might use sprites that are scaled up at different scales at the same time and/or rotated in high resolution. This just ruins it for me.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. I think 'The Incident' [1] for iOS does it just perfectly. And it's a really fun game.

[1]: <http://bigbucketsoftware.com/theincident/>

<comment><USER3> Yes! They got it right! Amazing. Thanks for this, I can use it as an example next time I am discussing with game developers that don't understand what I am talking about.

<comment><USER5> I thought the same until I looked closely at the rotated objects as they landed. Not -quite- right.

Still. Lovely game and very charming and thoughtful artwork.

<comment><USER6> The artwork is nice, but the game is very hard to play (at least on an iPad...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm somewhat shocked to discover that other scaling algorithms exist. I always assumed that there were only nearest neighbor + a set of scaling algorithms that would introduce blur to images other than photography.

A good example of _not_ thinking outside the box.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've always liked these - the hq3x algorithm is stunning (scroll down on the linked page to see a good result).

<comment><USER8> I've tried[1] to use it to weasel-out from creating improved graphics for iPhone 4 display, but unfortunately it doesn't work well for graphics with anti-aliasing.

[1] <https://github.com/pornel/rgba-hq2x>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Has anyone considered generalizing these to voxels -- adding details to minecraft style spaces?

</comment><comment><USER10> Here's HQ2x done as an OpenGL shader:

[http://gitorious.org/bsnes/bsnes/blobs/master/pixelshaders/G...](http://gitorious.org/bsnes/bsnes/blobs/master/pixelshaders/GLSL/HQ2x.shader)

</comment><comment><USER11> Does anyone know of any work being done to convert photographs/images/etc into pixel art?

</comment><comment><USER12> Pixel Art Scaling Algorithms Comparison on a Sonic screenshot: [http://plus.mobianlegends.com/emulators/Gens- gs-r7-win32-pkg...](http://plus.mobianlegends.com/emulators/Gens- gs-r7-win32-pkg1/doc/manual/plugin-render.html)

<comment><USER12> hq4x vs Scale4x (i.e. EPX/Scale2x applied 2 times)

normal: [http://plus.mobianlegends.com/emulators/Gens- gs-r7-win32-pkg...](http://plus.mobianlegends.com/emulators/Gens- gs-r7-win32-pkg1/doc/manual/images/render/render-normal.png)

hq4x: [http://plus.mobianlegends.com/emulators/Gens- gs-r7-win32-pkg...](http://plus.mobianlegends.com/emulators/Gens- gs-r7-win32-pkg1/doc/manual/images/render/render-hq4x.png)

Scale4x: [http://plus.mobianlegends.com/emulators/Gens- gs-r7-win32-pkg...](http://plus.mobianlegends.com/emulators/Gens- gs-r7-win32-pkg1/doc/manual/images/render/render-scale4x.png)

Scale4x seems better to me on this pic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> When I was in high school I tried to write a star control clone and I had a devil of a time with rotating the ships.

The first method I used would write the rotated pixel array back to the array I hand coded with the rgb values for the ship. Error quickly crept in, and while you were rotating, the ship would gradually shrink to a single pixel. After that, I used 2 arrays and it looked ok and nobody complained, but I was never truly satisfied with the result. I'm glad to know I wasn't the only one bothered by poor quality pixel rotations.

</comment><comment><USER14> CSI taking the detailed photo of a killer off a reflection in a doorknob from grainy surveillance footage. What algorithm is that?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's called Hollywood fiction, and there is a proprietary implementation in Movie OS (the one that beeps at every keystroke)

<comment><USER15> Ok, the infinite zoom is bullocks, but the keyboard thing might not be.

Mine does not beep though, but it makes click-a-di-clack with every keystroke, like in many movies (and keyboards back in the 80's).

It also has tactile feedback and n-rollover and was expensive as hell, but then again, I'm the kind of nut-case who learned Dvorak keyboard layout because I'm so damn lazy.

Granted, they don't do the later part in movies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Anyone know a way to use any of these on OS X? e.g. in Photoshop?

I googled but only found the .exe for hq3x</comment>


$job = "I have php skills"; - <AUTHOR>

firstname.lastname@example.com <comment><USER2>
        <?php
          $job = "I have php skills";

          function test_his_abilities($job) {
            switch($job) {
              case "I have php skills":
                return true;
              break;
              case "I am an keen developer, utilising all aspects of my available knowledge, and if they become taxed, am a competant researcher, able to research and learn to improve my current abilities.":
                return false;
              break;
            }
          }

          print $this_guy_sucks_at_php ? 'pretty certain he does suck' : test_his_abilities($job) ? 'pretty simplistic skillset' : 'maybe this guy\'s legit.';
        ?>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Excellent, want work?</comment>


Facebook Locking Out GDPR Users Until They Consent - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/maxschrems/status/998681336427827201?s=21 <comment><USER2> Since everything Facebook does requires consent under Article 6 (or, in some cases, Article 9) of the GDPR, what, exactly, should they do otherwise that would not violate clear proscriptions in the GDPR?

This isn't a case where there is non-GDPR functionality that can be severed and provided in the absence of GDPR consent.

<comment><AUTHOR> GDPR is quite unclear about..well...almost everything. But, for example, this guy wants to read his own messages, which is a rather popular use of Facebook. If they wanted to comply with GDPR, they could easily present him a dialog asking solely for permission to process the data necessary to show him his messages. Instead, they are asking for his consent to their entire new privacy policy. That policy includes permissions for functions that are not absolutely necessary to do what this user wants to do, such as ad targeting.

This kind of thing is exactly what I have been saying would happen with GDPR. Large companies will say "take all of it or leave it" - and for the most part they'll get away with it. They have the power to do this, and very little will change for them. The difference is that they are now able to run without fear of startup competitors ever closing in on them, because no startup can get away with this same thing.

The natural effect of GDPR will be to consolidate power and data in the hands of the few companies that can both afford to comply and wield enough power in users' lives to strong-arm them into giving consent to anything the company wants to do.

<comment><USER3> No, it won't be - because that sort of strong arming is precisely not compliance. You may argue that they won't be punished for it (I don't think that is likely, but you are right to think it's an option), but you are wrong to say it is a natural consequence of compliance.

<comment><USER2> A natural effect of a regulation isn't always a natural effect of compliance; non-compliance is a natural effect of some regulations.

High illegal immigration from Mexico is, given geography and existing population demographics, a natural effect of the US's per-country caps on family-based immigration categories.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As much as I appreciate the sheer balls of this, it's clearly not in compliance with the law according to the recitals; consent gained in this fashion is not "freely given." Now personally, I think this approach should be acceptable -- if you don't like it, don't use it. But under the GDPR, that's not the deal.

Be right back, making popcorn.

<comment><USER5> No balls involved here. They know the number of users that will blindly click accept to whatever policy change popup appears.

So it's standard mo to show users shit, get the clicks, then use the numbers to justify how much people love the platform. The rest of the herd then stands back and says hmmm maybe this is what people "really" want.

<comment><USER6> Yeah...

No.

There may not be 'balls' here, but this is definitely the most hilariously bad way for Facebook to handle this.

What this is REALLY saying is this:

A) We here at Facebook aren't really about connecting people. We are about marketing, and ad delivery in order to generate revenue.

B) The goal of keeping you connected and communicating with your social graph is so unimportant to us, that we are either technically incapable, or otherwise unwilling to provide service to customer bases that we cannot monetize.

C) We will hold onto, and continue selling any data we have already collected about you, that we really never got informed consent from you on, because we told you it was about us connecting you, and you didn't read the fine print.

So either accept, or here is a copy of your data. Excuse us while we sell what we already have. Ciao!

This will NOT earn Facebook any "Good Faith" points in the court of public opinion, and is adding further fuel to the international fire of "how far will contract law be allowed to usurp fundamental rights?"

Popcorn time indeed!

<comment><USER7> Do you expect anything else from Facebook?

"People just submitted it. I don't know why. They 'trust me'. Dumb f__ks." -Mark Zuckerberg

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting that this coincides with his appearance to the EU parliament [0]?

What's most interesting to me, is that whilst many say this is flat out illegal under the GDPR. If after this appearance, i.e some form of lobbying to the EU. Whether it sets a new precedent?

If bigger companies can get away with this sort of action due to lobbying. Then smaller companies/startups will surely lose out as they are unable to match lobbying efforts and will result in not being able to be as competitive.

I'm very interested to see how things progress in the coming weeks. Whether there is an amendment (due to a backdown by Facebook) or this becomes the norm and other larger companies follow.

[0]: [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/22/european-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/22/european- parliament-livestream-mark-zuckerberg-appearance-facebook)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A rough translation of the screenshot:

"Your Options:

If you do not agree, you cannot continue using Facebook. You can delete your account and you have the option of downloading your information"

</comment><comment><USER9> I believe this is the first real test as to how much teeth GDPR will actually have.

</comment><comment><USER10> So all the previous rhetoric about users always having known what they were signing up to and things being easily opt-out, what was that?

It's amazing (though not really) that all these companies were quite sure they gave users informed and accurate choices, until _real_ penalties are attached if that isn't quite true...

</comment><comment><USER11> It may be illegal. See this thread: [https://mobile.twitter.com/johnnyryan/status/993827965594202...](https://mobile.twitter.com/johnnyryan/status/993827965594202112)

<comment><USER2> I would argue the GDPR would make _anything else_ Facebook could do illegal. It might also make this illegal, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A 'clever' strategy would be if they required consent now, before the new rules kick in, and then later made it optional. Most users won't go back and change the permissions anyway.

<comment><USER13> I don't think it works like this. If your argument for GDPR compliance is that you have your user's consent, it is required that the consent was freely given, when it was collected is orthogonal to that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Do note that Facebook, like any large company complying with new regulations , have been in contact with EU representatives on their implementation, so the idea that this is a "bold" move on their part or they are doing something obviously illegal just isn't true.

</comment><comment><USER15> If facebook is making >4% of its revenue from EU, then it's worth risking the fine.

<comment><USER16> As far as I know they can be fined multiple times until they comply with the law.

<comment><USER17> Not only that, the fines will get exponentially more severe for repeated non compliance.

<comment><USER18> The maximum fine is 4% of revenue.

<comment><USER19> ...per incident

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Saw this yesterday. Deleted my account. Problem solved. Recommended.

</comment><comment><USER21> What do you have to consent to?

<comment><AUTHOR> Their new privacy policy, which includes consent to all of Facebook's standard data processing, ad targeting, etc. You either accept or leave the platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> GDPR seems like it runs contrary to information theory and will become a crutch for censorship.

</comment><comment><USER23> They're doing this with WhatsApp, too.

WhatsApp is a dead-end at this point anyway, as they plan on removing end-to- end encryption. That's why both of WhatsApp's founders and many other employees have started leaving the company.

<comment><USER24> Any source on that "they plan on removing end-to-end encryption" other than uneducated speculation?

<comment><USER25> It is speculation, but only to some extent; upon the acquisition they've pledged to preserve the privacy and security of WhatsApp users.

To some extent the announcement of him leaving, following changes to terms of service last year, make if for a very good canary in the coal mine kind of warning, that even if bound by confidentiality or other agreements preventing disclosure, he's leaving $4B behind for "some reason". I'm sure if it was to launch a new venture that'd be fine to disclose...

<comment><USER24> It means something fishy might be happening, but they don't have to break e2e encryption in order to achieve fishy things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> What Facebook did is quite a bit like police coercion to make you confess to perpetrating a crime.</comment>


Introduction to the Linux goto shell utility - <AUTHOR> https://opensource.com/article/20/1/directories-autocomplete-linux <comment><AUTHOR> GitHub repository: [https://github.com/iridakos/goto](https://github.com/iridakos/goto)</comment>


Surprising, Vibrant Reef Discovered in the Muddy Amazon - <AUTHOR> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/220416-Amazon-coral-reef-Brazil-ocean-river-fish/ <comment><AUTHOR> Most reefs rely on photosynthesis via a symbiotic relationship with cyanobacteria to get energy, but the water here is too cloudy. Instead many of the sponges in this reef rely on a symbiotic relationship with chemosynthetic microbes. Pretty cool!

</comment><comment><USER2> This makes me realize how lucky we are that the ocean is as relatively transparent as it is, such that we can witness the beauty of ocean reefs. We might never find a way to really _see_ how amazing this reef is. We can map it, explore it, and probably eventually render really amazing recreations of what it would look like in clear water, but we'll never see it.

<comment><USER3> Think about how much luckier we are that air is transparent!

<comment><USER4> The air is transparent because those are the wavelengths we (as air creatures) evolved to see. If it wasn't, we would have evolved sight in wavelengths (or media) that _was_ transparent: ie: sonar, x-rays.

<comment><USER5> That's debateable. We may simply have evolved without photon sensors.

Other wavelengths may have issues with detection or the information provided; if something can cut through obstructions in the atmosphere it may be hard to grow cells which interact with it or the rays may also ignore whatever is present locally at most scales.

The eye might be reduced in detail to the same domain as hearing or smell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Been reading Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, it mentions corals at the mouth of the Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER7> _Sparsely populated reef discovered in the Southwestern Atlantic Ocean, spanning a large area that includes the amazon delta._

</comment><comment><USER8> "At least 35 sections of the continental shelf were acquired by Brazilian or transnational companies for oil exploration, up to 20 of which may soon be producing oil near the reefs."

Sigh.

<comment><USER9> Uninformative news. What is a section? What percentage of the reef area are them? How near?

<comment><USER10> I forget who said it (Neil Tyson?), but something along the lines of: "If you hear a statistic, change the order of magnitude. Does that change how you feel about the fact? If not, the statistic is probably bullshit."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> here is the paper [http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/4/e1501252](http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/4/e1501252)

</comment><comment><USER11> Sparsely populated with beautiful yellow rectangles.

</comment><comment><USER12> Just to be clear, this is as much in the Amazon as the Gulf of Mexico is on the Mississippi

It is on the sea, close to its end, but not on the river itself

</comment><comment><USER13> But OMG, the reef is already threatened.</comment>


MacBook Pro 13" Touch Bar Teardown - <AUTHOR> https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Touch+Bar+Teardown/73480 <comment><USER2> I am surprised by few things after newest rMBP teardowns

\- Battery takes less space, than I thought, just eyeballing it but it seems that in (classic)rMBP battery takes more volume percent-wise.

\- Battery is smaller by ~10% than non touch bar model (49.2 Wh vs 54.5 Wh) and significantly smaller than the classic rmbps.

\- Two fans, classics had 1.

\- Touchbar has speakers speakers under palm rest, and not under grills, thus it has slits on the bottom whereas the non-touchbar has not.

\- Visually speakers are bigger in the non touch bar version

\- Touchbar has ssd soldered and non-touch bar - removable ssd

\- Touchbar has more gaps and unused volume - mainly in battery area.

Maybe there will be major reconstruction inside rMBP13 next year? Just like 2012 vs 2013 rMBP13? 2012 model was a mess (by Apple standards) inside.

Like the comment in iFixit, maybe rMBP13 was not designed for touchbar in the first place? It was decided later to make it?

<comment><USER3> > 49.2 kWh vs 54.5 kWh

That would be quite the battery. Really, it's 49.2 Wh and 54.5 Wh, not kWh.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for mentioning. Edited.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love the fake speaker grilles that don't even go all the way through the machine... Form follows function, minimal design indeed.

<comment><USER5> I hate to admit this but I'll bite. Apple is being steered by fifty shades of Steve Ballmer now. Colored and extra-large iPhones, death to magSafe, stupid mini-iPads that have no reason to exist other than being a marketing offer.

Decisions for the sake of making decisions.

<comment><USER2> > Colored and extra-large iPhones, <...> being a marketing offer.

I do not understand how they are stepping on the same thing like 20+ years ago - they have too many versions for the same type of device.

They have different names for it: Pro, SE, S, Plus, Air, mini. And it's inconsistent, e.g. ipad Air is not the smallest ipad, where does SE stack in current Apple naming?

They add colors to mix all this (not to mention gazillion bands for watches).

They do not transition their mobile tech to usb-c which creates miserable dongle-gate within their own hardware ecosystem. Maybe can someone give a reason why they are still sticking with lightning? Even using it for their pencil, new mouse, new trackpad and new keyboard.

Apple has much better name and consistency than most hardware manufacturers, but it's getting so confusing than it used to be[0]. I understand there are more products today, but I guess all of them can be delivered in Pro and consumer versions with consistent peripherals so when people spend couple of thousand bucks on your products they do not need to go back to the store and spend another hundred to dongle up.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iTNWZF2m3o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iTNWZF2m3o)

<comment><USER6> The not moving iPhone to USB-C is the real killer. It makes NO sense from a technical standpoint, and makes every self-indulgent speech about moving technology forward just drip with marketing bullshit.

It even makes other decisions, like USB-C on the new macbook line look stupid because now you can't defend that by saying they're just trying to move everything to one standard because Apple themselves are fragmenting the standards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Repairability 1 out of 10

This is my main reason to stop buying Apple hardware, not so much the lack of an Esc key. The Mid 2012 model still scored 7 / 10.

<comment><USER8> I have used 1 Apple device in the last 15 years, an iPod shuffle I got as a gift (I shorted it out by sweating near it).

Are other manufacturers doing much better? On my older laptop, the HDD is 2 screws to access. On the laptop my mom used previously, you had to take the CPU fan assembly out after removing the keyboard to get at the HDD.

<comment><USER9> Was the HDD soldered in place once you got there?

<comment><USER8> I gave up when I looked at the procedure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is really an iPad running MacOS, with everything soldered on, zero upgradeability and near-zero repairability. That's the antithesis of a "professional" machine.

I wonder if we'll see a similar trend with the mac pro if Apple doesn't decide to scrap it completely.

We run quite a few mac pros and macbook pros at work, so this has us thinking hard.

<comment><USER11> Why is upgradability inherent in professional? I've never worked somewhere that upgrades work machines. Every couple of years we get new ones.

<comment><USER9> We upgrade the SSD for every dev. 1TB instead of a paltry 256GB.

<comment><USER12> If you bought it with 1TB already in it, you wouldn't have to upgrade anything. ;)

It would be nice to be able to upgrade, but really, it's not a dealbreaker for me. I really enjoy developing on Mac and I needed to upgrade for my AIr, so I bought a new one of these.

Windows is still lacking on the dev side (though I'm hoping it gets there soon), and Linux isn't quite where I need it to be for my personal stuff.

<comment><USER9> >If you bought it with 1TB already in it, you wouldn't have to upgrade anything. ;)

You're right; it would just cost an absurd amount of money considering what a 1TB SSD actually goes for. The procedure takes all of ten minutes, well worth it.

I actually can't stand doing real work in OSX, I use Windows. I just like the hardware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> can anybody tell me why Apple didn't try harder to max out the battery?? apparently the 15" version has even more unused space:

[https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/15/2016-macbook-pro-non- removabl...](https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/15/2016-macbook-pro-non-removable- ssd-small-batteries/)

if this is really a compromise to hit some weight target I will have to join the "Apple don't care about the Pros anymore" camp...

<comment><USER13> I can see the marketing storyline: 3.0 pounds sounds cooler than 10+h battery life. Because: 10 hours = 1 working day = enough

<comment><USER14> I use a 2014 rMBP. I need to keep Virtual desktop client running all through the day, Outlook for corporate email, and Safari for everything web-based. I can go though 70% of my day without needing to plug in. I really really really wish Apple add little more capacity so I don't need to be anxious about spending a work day on the move.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I will copy very interesting question from ifixit:

> How do you do a power rest if the machine hangs? Before you held down the > power button for a few seconds. Would that work with a touch ID button?

Any ideas?

<comment><USER16> They do also say in the article about the Touch ID button: "That button also doubles as the power button, so fixing a power button may be a more costly affair than it once was."

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Repairability score: 1 out of 10. No big surprise.

<comment><USER18> They could have done 2 if the SSD was user replaceable.

You have to carefully planned your MBP configuration, unfortunately SSD upgrade are terribly expensive. An extra 25% of the price to go from 256GB to 1TB.

Actually that's probably fine for a professional machine, as you will be alright with a smaller disk until you replace the MBP anyway. For a power-user machine that you plan to keep several (5+) years, that's another story.

<comment><USER19> The fact that you have to plan your disk and RAM configuration years ahead is really annoying. Especially for a laptop that's on the high end of the price range.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> They sure as hell sacrificed a lot of battery for those useless stereo speakers.

<comment><USER21> They might be useless for you, but some people use them. This design decision might be coherent with their main target audience.

<comment><USER22> That's always a bit double. At one point I appreciate they try to improve the sound (and maybe succeed? didn't hear the last model yet), on the other hand I loathe the marketing 'best sound ever'-like phrases and hope not too many people fall for it, as it is in fact physically impossible to get anywhere near proper source reproduction whith such small speakers placed behind a cover. Then again, as you say target audience might not care about that.

<comment><USER23> For me video conferencing on a laptop is a very usual use case, and improved audio makes that better. I don't think I'm the only one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Mods: there's a wonky "smart quote" in the title, that would be great to fix.

<comment><USER25> The correct symbol for the inch is the ″ (DOUBLE PRIME).

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The mid 2012 Pro still got 7/10

[https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Unibody+...](https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Unibody+Mid+2012+Teardown/9515)

</comment><comment><USER27> Could anyone tell me why there is a three-microphone array built in to the touchbar? My privacy-sense is tingeling like crazy over this.

<comment><USER28> Well microphone arrays are directional. Is that the question? It allows an app to home in on the speaker, avoiding background noise.

<comment><USER29> Probably necessary to make Siri more reliable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm wondering what necessitates the second fan. The 2016 function keys MBP only has one fan.

<comment><USER31> 2016 MBP FK has processor with lower TDP

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> How do you perform a power reset without an actual button?

<comment><USER33> You can do it the same way as any other mac as the touch id sensor is still a physical button.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I wonder how much cost their fingerprint scanner btw.

</comment><comment><USER35> I would have preferred an iphone dock where the touchpad resides, just replace the supplied touch pad with your iphone and you get and additional screen.

but they gave us this useless touch screen.

<comment><USER36> Before I saw leaked photos of the touchbar channel, I had convinced myself that Apple was going to put a screen under the track pad. Oh well.

<comment><USER37> I have a gut feeling that this is still in the works and the main reasons for the trackpad size expansion that no-one in particular was asking for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I told you SSD will be permanently soldered to the PCB, received downvotes in return :)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12826005](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12826005)

Apple finally decided with this round of macbooks to shift from producing laptops into content consumption appliances like iPhone. Next step of this internal plan involves processors.

<comment><USER39> ".. content consumption appliances like .."

That's still quite a hyperbole isn't it?

Is 40Gbps Thunderbolt 3 for content consumption? Is 3.1/2.1Gbps SSD for content consumption? Edit: Is a super accurate and wide color gamut screen for content consumption?

"Next step of this internal plan involves processors."

What exactly are you alluding to here? Apple designing its own processor? x86 or ARM? Do you think Apple will go through another architecture switch on macOS?

Laptops are going to become even more integrated. That's just physics. Long, wide traces are not good for either power consumption or bandwidth.

But how that will manifest in future MacBooks is hard to say. They could still go for off-the-shelf components and packages (probably Intel will start to deliver processors with stacked or silicon interposer bonded RAM). But it would make some sense for them to design their own processors. Though Intel is still really far ahead in semiconductor process and processor architecture. I'm not sure they can come close enough to justify it.

<comment><USER40> _> Is 40Gbps Thunderbolt 3 for content consumption?_

Considering that using USB3 bandwidth disables WiFi[1], yes.

[1][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYVjIjBMx6o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYVjIjBMx6o)

<comment><USER39> See, why do you have to use the "it's for consumers" argument when it doesn't apply?

If it's a laptop which includes features which is WAY beyond the requirements of your average consumer, and with the price to boot, it's not a consumer laptop.

Maybe the specs don't quite match certain specific professional users requirements. Maybe certain features are broken. Maybe there are flaws in the product.

Those issues can be addressed on their own.

You don't have to tie it to some misguided idea that Apple is making it with the intent of content consumption.

That people have to attach their critique to some far-fetched speculation about Apples motivations signals that they may not think the critique can stand on its own. Which is a shame, because often it can.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Startups: It's Not a Race, It's Parkour - <AUTHOR> http://www.kenbautista.com/thoughts/startupsandparkour.html <comment><USER2> As someone who has been training Parkour for about 6 years, I think this is a great article and draws a lot of great comparisons.

</comment><comment><USER3> I had no idea there was a word for that. I briefly did gymnastics when I was real young and I think Parkour is amazing. I also love the visual metaphor of navigating the urban landscape like this -- men in suits with briefcases doing this -- and the comparisons. Very spot on in my opinion. I would only add that you clearly need to be in good shape to do this and I think the same applies to business or any other "creative" endeavor (defining "creative" as "something you make up as you go). You can overcome a lot if you are starting out from a basic level of strength, flexibility, know-how and so on. But some people will need to do a lot just to get to that starting place.

<comment><USER2> If you're interested in starting, email me (in my profile) and let me know where you are. I know of people all over the place and can connect you with the local community.

It's never too late to start - like I said in my longer reply below, parkour is awesome because it can scale to anyone at any level of fitness.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, but I'm someone who is currently walking seven miles at least once a week so I can reverse the damage to my body from a deadly genetic disorder (that nearly killed me 10 years ago). That's currently enough challenge for me. :-) If I ever feel like I have gotten my body back from the demon that stole it, I will consider getting in touch.

<comment><USER2> Sounds good. Parkour is all about doing things that are challenging for you, not necessarily the next guy. If you're making moves to improve your health, you've got my support. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Isn't it's more like a marathon Parkour game?

You have to adapt, move with strength and all that, but you have to do that thousand of times until you hit what you're looking for.

<comment><USER2> People who practice parkour train movements a thousand times before they're able to do a lot of the things you see in popular videos. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Flat ground marathon running is for big companies that can just throw resources at a problem. For a small company to get ahead, it needs to take some creative shortcuts.

Sure, a lot of parkour is "frivolous" and "flashy", but so are most startups. For the serious traceurs and entrepreneurs though, finding a shorter path can be the difference between being a success and an also ran.

In short, do what it takes to get to where you need to be, obstacles be damned.

<comment><USER6> As I mention below, parkour is not actually "flashy". From Wiki: _However, the term free running has come to represent a separate concept, distinctly different from parkour — a distinction which is often missed due to the aesthetic similarities. Parkour as a discipline emphasizes efficiency, whilst free running embodies complete freedom of movement — and includes many acrobatic maneuvers. Although the two are often physically similar, the mindsets of each are vastly different._

It's not just semantics; "real" parkour and free running are very different approaches to interfacing with the urban environment. This article clearly refers to literal parkour, not free running— a little confusing since the embedded video has a lot of flashy stuff going on that "real" traceurs wouldn't put up with.

If you want a better example of "real" parkour, think of the opening scene of Casino Royale. That guy (Sebastien Foucan, one of the "founders" of Le Parkour) was running away from a professional killer, he didn't have any time to stop and do a handstand. And yet the entire time that Bond is crashing through walls trying to keep up, Foucan is moving with speed, grace and elegance.

<comment><USER7> Parkour is not _intentionally_ flashy for the mere sake of being flashy. However if the fastest way to go from point A to point B is to leap over an obstacle, a lot of people are going to be impressed with the leap regardless of why it was made.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The metaphor only stands if you're willing to admit that your startup is entirely frivolous, strictly a trend, and flashy without any attention to substance.

So yes, your startup probably does have a lot in common with parkour. Shouldn't we change that?

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure why you think parkour is "frivolous, a trend, or flashy without any attention to substance."

I've been training parkour for almost 6 years, and I've seen a lot of misinformation out there.

Parkour is all about improving yourself, being creative, and play. We focus hard on increasing strength, flexibility, durability, speed, balance, and coordination - in addition to more specific skills like climbing, vaulting. But creativity and play is one of the best parts of parkour - finding fun or silly ways to wiggle through tiny spaces, swing through a jungle gym, or games to play in a field.

Seeing the changes in our students' attitudes when they first walk into our gym versus after they've been training for a year or two is amazing. They look healthier, they are more confident, and they are happier.

Parkour is more than just a trend in the fitness industry - it has the breadth and depth of something that is rooted in what the human body was designed to do. It isn't a game (contrary to the OP's post), it has no rules, it has no rankings or belts or levels. It's scalable to any person at any level of fitness and it's capable of constantly providing new challenges.

So I'm not exactly sure where you're getting your facts from, but it's likely based on shitty youtube videos of dumb kids jumping off of their roofs. Misconceptions from these videos are something I've spent years fighting, educating people one at a time.

<comment><USER9> You seem like a marketing guy for the "parkour 4 hackers" putting it against traditional martial arts just like the hacker culture is against corporate culture. I'm not against that, just a notice.

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure where you got the impression that parkour is "against" traditional martial arts. I had been training various martial arts for about 7 years before I started parkour, and then kept training for another 3 or so afterward. I'm a huge fan of martial arts, as are many traceurs.

I'm not so much a marketing guy for "parkour 4 hackers" as I am a marketing guy for "people finding something they love and doing it."

It's been incredibly influential in my life and it's helped make me who I am. Because of that, I do tend to go out of my way to help correct misconceptions and misinformation.

<comment><USER9> Cool, really cool. I'm now trying to get into shape(loose weight, improve breathing and stamina) with simple jump rope and hope to start training something specifical in near future so looking into different stuff. I didn't want to offend you or something. That post about parkour being without any kind of rankings/belts just seemed like an argument against those rankings a bit, which just related to the hacker culture for me, that's all. Sorry for the trolling about it ;)

<comment><USER2> No worries. Never any hard feelings or anything. :)

Do you know what you want to train in the future? Whether it's parkour or not, I'd love to chat and see if I can help you find what's a good fit for you. Email is in my profile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Fantastic post!</comment>


PHP to Django: Changing the engine while the car is running - <AUTHOR> http://devblog.policystat.com/php-to-django-changing-the-engine-while-the-c?c=1

<comment><USER2> _In our case, the prototype was written in PHP with the kind of architecture you'd expect from a prototype. There were 45 .php files in a folder with one file called class.main.php. No templates. No classes. No consistent database access. No MVC. No ORM. No tests. [...] it was still obvious that moving to Django was in the best interest of our company (and my sanity)._

Isn't the entire point of prototype code to throw it away eventually? It's okay if the code is messy, because it's just meant as a quick proof of concept, right?

People think programming in PHP _has_ to be messy and insane. But what I find even more amazing is actual PHP developers perpetuating this somehow. Case in point, I just spent the night doing maintenance on a website where a simple contact form was one monstrous 3000 lines copy-and-paste spaghetti code disaster written in PHP by a very well-known, respected and well-educated programmer. In the end I threw it away and replaced it with 50 lines of sane and maintainable code, also written in PHP. The point of this anecdote isn't to show how cool I am but to illustrate that there is something about PHP that makes people switch off their brains. Which is kind of sad, because it is possible to write very elegant things with it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Writing a session backend for Django to allow it to share sessions with PHP is a pretty clever idea. To be honest, that's the only really interesting thing they did.</comment>


WANdisco integrates social networking with source code management - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wandisco.com/2011/04/21/welcome-ubersvn/ Looks like these guys have done a good job of dragging SVN into the present. <comment><USER2> We're in 2011, and DVCS like Mercurial or Git have proved to be a better choice than Centralized systems like Subversion or CVS... Why build a product like this based on SVN today?</comment>


The Surprisingly Solid Mathematical Case of the Tin Foil Hat Gun Prepper - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/s/story/the-surprisingly-solid-mathematical-case-of-the-tin-foil-hat-gun-prepper-15fce7d10437 <comment><USER2> The problem I have is when people say that they need an ar15 (or any automatic rifle) to defend themselves, family, or to protect their property. I'll put the last out of the way first: theft is not a capital offense, so someone stealing your car is not a reason to shoot them.

For the other options a automatic rifle is an poor choice. No rifle has any difficulty going through dry wall or cladding, so if you're in any urban or suburban location your odds of hitting someone else (like your family members or neighbors) is reasonably high.

For rifles like ar15s you're firing bullets that will go through whoever you hit, if you do hit them. Given they're automatic, you're presumably planning on firing many rounds, which further increases the risk to others.

Presumably part of the reason to want an automatic weapon is to manage missing the target - that's why soldiers have them. Of course a soldier has another thing a preppier doesn't have: all the people in one direction are valid targets.

This isn't the case if you're not on a battlefield.

Then there's the practicality of the "protect my family" argument. For that to be useful your gun (of any kind) has to be loaded and easily accessible - which is a good way to add to the statistics of children accidentally killing themselves or others with their parents guns.

Finally - if you /really/ want to have a gun to "protect your family/self" use a shotgun. There's less harm to people who aren't directly in the line of fire, the effective distance is vastly shorter so less risk to people in other rooms, and you don't have to be as good at aiming.

High powered automatic rifles don't belong off a battlefield.

<comment><USER3> An AR15 is a semi-automatic rifle. An M-16 is an automatic rifle and can't be owned by a civilian. A semi-automatic firearm means to fire two rounds you must pull the trigger twice, to fire three you pull three times etc. An automatic rifle will fire as long as you hold the trigger back.

An M-16 will expend it's 30 round magazine in about 3 seconds in full auto. Full auto is rarely used and when it is it's mainly for suppressive fire, which generally means to keep the enemy's head down while your squad moves to better cover or firing position.

Oh, one more thing, at house distances shotguns most certainly have to be aimed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In terms of rifles, the relevant calculation would be more along the lines of the probability of a calamity happening and the rifle coming in handy, versus the probability that the rifle is abused in some way (stolen, harmful accident or suicide). I generally believe that those with prepper mentality downplay the latter probabilities because those are more under their control. Preppers tend to be control freaks, and worry much more about exogenous risks than risks they feel they can personally manage. However, this is likely fallacious reasoning. Everyone runs a risk of a mental/emotional break, or an act of carelessness leading to an accident.

</comment><comment><USER5> Building a house doesn't cause a flood plain to flood (hopefully!), but adding lots of guns to a country sounds like it should have an effect on the number of revolutions, be it up or down.

It's also not clear whether prepping will have been a good thing or a bad thing in the event of a revolution. You're arguably more likely to shoot yourself with a gun than to shoot someone else, even during a period of civil unrest; you're painting a target on yourself in the eyes the government; some measures you could take, like owning a gun, fortifying your house, firing your rifle at 7AM, owning an aggressive dog, or kicking people off your property, will socially isolate you from the same neighbours you'll need to cooperate with in the event of a disaster; and in general it's not clear why a prepper is more likely to survive than a small-scale farmer, given that the latter owns and regularly uses guns, produces food, is used to intermittent hardship and long days, lives in a rural area, and gets along with the government and their neighbours better.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Building a house doesn't cause a flood plain to flood (hopefully!), but > adding lots of guns to a country sounds like it should have an effect on the > number of revolutions, be it up or down.

Intuition would imply that, but I'd say there's not enough data to really say. There's countries with less civilian firearm ownership than the US, older and younger both, with more frequent violent revolution, and less frequent violent revolution. There's too many differences in culture, demographics, economics, and probably other factors I'm not thinking of, that even if increased rates of firearm ownership had an effect on the number of revolutions, that effect is utterly swamped by other factors.

Your latter paragraph seems to imply you have a different idea of what preppers do than I do. When I hear the word "prepper", I think of a person who stockpiles non-perishable foods, stockpiles ammo, owns multiple firearms and practices with them regularly, and drills both evacuation and hunkering-down scenarios with their family. I'm not sure where alienation of the neighbors enters in here, as nothing in preparing for a disaster requires or recommends having pre-established enemies living <100 feet in any direction from where you do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> No.. surprisingly naieve stats. There is no causal linkage between violent events beyond the business cycle, so his math on averages is observational not deterministic.

The watts riots are not linked to no blood for oil. You can't throw a line between them and plot median interval before violence breaks out like that.

Seriously: prepping makes sense if you are risk averse but you don't go from hydrology flood risk to vampires in one throw.

</comment><comment><USER7> He shouldn't ignore the minor events and only calculate the grand events. For instance the Brits attacked us in 1812, Mormons slaughtered settlers 59 years later, Mexican revolutionaries raided borders, Johnstown was flooded, Pinkerton shot strikers, we had draft riots, Martin Luther King's assassination set off urban riots as did the Rodney King trial, if you were black in the South your life was in peril, Hurricane Katrina placed folks in desperate straits with an already corrupt police force refusing to help and actually hindering self protection to the point of openly shooting people for no god damn reason, almost forgot Kent State, the armed forces killing citizens. The whole fucking enterprise is corrupt. The unibomber may have been on to something ala John Brown whose body lies moldering in the grave.

</comment><comment><USER8> What really scares me is, the same argument applies to war- and because the world is loaded with nuclear weapons, when it finally happens it's likely to go nuclear. Nukes are one class of weapon where in the aggregate their existence is an existential threat to mankind.

<comment><USER9> For this reason, a long term goal of mine is to move to New Zealand. In retrospect, we probably had a more likely chance than not of the Cold War turning nuclear. There were several extremely close calls averted by dumb luck.

In the next Cold War, especially in light of instability from climate change, we might not be so lucky.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, New Zealand is probably the right place- isolated, Southern Hemisphere so there's less fallout, English speaking, temperate. Still, in the worst case scenario there will be about a billion starving people flooding down from various places in Asia so even there you're not really safe. I'm putting my efforts into political organizing as my strategy, I think that there really isn't any good course of action in the event of nuclear war and prevention is the only good option.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Prepping might give you an advantage during a small interruption in services. Any prolonged disruption and it does you little good, unless you're far removed from everyone and no one knows you have some dedirable goods. Maybe if you live in decommed silo. Otherwise, unless you have a militia with you, who will needs lots of food and other things, no matter how well you're armed and stocked, you'll be overwhelmed by others you're not sharing with. So it may help in minor cases, but definitely not in catastrophic cases, except it may help delay the inevitable a little bit.

</comment><comment><USER11> Financial calamity prevented on every down turn year turns a normally unstable situation into a financial bomb. Markets are always unstable and they always correct. Thwarting the ultimate course of corrections ensure that eventually a correction comes that cannot be stopped or softened and the magnitude isn't a calamity. It is a cataclysm.

<comment><USER12> I think of the example of holding a beachball under water. The farther under the water you hold it, the more explosively it will leap out of control when you do let it go.

<comment><USER13> The example is broken.

Air is much more compressible than water. Pressure will be almost a linear function of depth because water isn't very compressible.

From the depth at which pressure is equalized inside and outside the beachball, until reaching the depth at which the ideal gas law becomes inaccurate, the volume of the beach ball will be simple function of depth. Doubling the depth will halve the volume. Beyond that, the volume will collapse faster, until the air becomes a supercritical fluid with density similar to that of the water.

In any case, the ball shrinks as you go deeper.

Buoyancy is roughly the density of the water times the volume of the ball. (the air inside is of trivial mass) The water density doesn't change much because water is not very compressible, but the volume of the ball decreases. This reduces the buoyancy force.

Suppose the ball is made of PVC, which sinks in water. Once the air has been pretty well compressed, the average density of the ball (air and PVC) will exceed that of water. The ball thus sinks.</comment></comment></comment>


The Horrible Implications of the EU VAT "Place of Supply" Change - <AUTHOR> http://rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2014/10/13/the-horrible-implications-of-the-eu-vat-place-of-supply-change/

<comment><USER2> I wrote Python ([https://github.com/wbond/vat_moss- python](https://github.com/wbond/vat_moss-python)) and JS ([https://github.com/wbond/vat-moss.js](https://github.com/wbond/vat-moss.js)) libraries for this. They include docs about how to handle other aspects of VAT MOSS also.

Included are methods to determine the applicable rate based on self-declared location, billing address, phone number or IP address. The Python library includes functionality to grab exchange rates and perform VAT ID validation.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, its not the nicest change of all time, but I recently implemented it for a customer and with a bit of magic and a dictionary of the form {"GB":20.0,"DE":19.0, ...} and everything was fine.

<comment><USER2> Well, I would say it is a bit more complicated than a dictionary with rates. You have to deal with all of the VAT rate exceptions, for instance the Azores, Jungholz, Heligoland, Livigno, etc. And then you have to collect two non- contradictory pieces of location proof. And allow businesses to provide a VAT ID, etc.

<comment><USER3> We had the VAT ID for businesses in place before that already and checked these against VIES, same for collecting two pieces of address, we have done that for a year already.

What are the exceptions for Azores etc? I didn't implement them, better check what the implications are.

I see the problem probably as an easier thing because I was able to roll it out bit by bit and only switch the tax codes over on Jan 1st. If one were to start from scratch now, that would be more annoying.

<comment><USER2> Here is an overview of the exceptions to the standard VAT rates: [https://github.com/wbond/vat_moss- python/blob/master/vat_mos...](https://github.com/wbond/vat_moss- python/blob/master/vat_moss/rates.py#L8-L55)

Those two libraries contain the logic to determine if a user is in one of those special areas by feeding in various information they have provided.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can anyone give any insight to the impact of these changes to businesses in EU countries other than the UK?</comment>


Minecraft gamers tear virtual Denmark to the ground - <AUTHOR> http://cphpost.dk/news/minecraft-gamers-tear-virtual-denmark-to-the-ground.9385.html

<comment><USER2> I wonder if they could set up some kind of "regenerating Denmark" minecraft mod that causes the "saved" file to gradually and automatically re-grow while non-Denmark features automatically gradually erode.

<comment><USER3> Some of the user generated content is probably good. Usually bad content get more publicity. They should have a method to add mark some of the new features as permanent.

Another possibility is to have some "moderators" wit a superpower to restore a section to the backup version. I don't know if this is difficult to implement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory: [http://www.penny- arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19](http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19)

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm not surprised. The first thing my sons friends do when he invites them onto his server is see how much of it they can blow up.

Unlike my son, at least these guys have backups of their world.

</comment><comment><USER6> > _A user of the entertainment, social networking and news website Reddit, > RandomDKguy, posted a screenshot of American tanks invading an area of > Copenhagen, complete with a number of Stars and Stripes flying, under the > title 'Americans are going amok in the Denmark map in Minecraft'._

It could be much worse, some arsehole might decide to build branches of Macdonalds' all over the place.

<comment><USER7> They already have 86 restaurants (most of them is franchises) in Denmark, and in 2011 their total revenue were $300.000.000 in Denmark alone.

They have already invaded :)

<comment><USER6> In February of 2000 I was in Madrid (being in a mountainous area it can get surprisingly cold at night), and recall standing in a square in the city centre. Look down one street, Maccie-D's, turn 30 degrees left to gaze down another street, Maccie-D's, turn another 90 degrees left, Maccie-D's. Below the hostel I was staying in, etcetera..

I think the term 'pandemic' is more appropriate than 'invasion'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The server admins should have anticipated this. That's why there are many server plugins you can install to prevent griefing or building. They should have made the world read-only.

<comment><USER2> If you can't deform the terrain then it isn't really Minecraft, is it?

<comment><USER9> Depends on your goals. The core game is Minecraft but mods have existed for a long time that make "Hunger Games" style adventure where your tools and foods must be earned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > A user of the entertainment, social networking and news website Reddit, > RandomDKguy, posted a screenshot of American tanks invading an area of > Copenhagen, complete with a number of Stars and Stripes flying, under the > title 'Americans are going amok in the Denmark map in Minecraft'.

Gosh, wouldn't it be great if it were possible to connect this article to that picture? Maybe we could call that technology 'linking.'

</comment><comment><USER11> Only someone who hasn't played Minecraft would be surprised at this. Altering the scenery is half the fun of the game, anyway (the other half is building cool stuff).

</comment><comment><USER12> If they escaped giant obsidian underground swastikas and dongs everywhere they got off lightly.

</comment><comment><USER13> The Minecraft world is not static. Plants grow, altering the landscape. Creepers destroy things, which can alter water channels. Thats before the fact that the fundamental gameplay element is to break down blocks into useful items. I guess they will reload the map until people play properly and "with respect". Thanks Denmark, for giving us the world's first Minecraft dictatorship!

<comment><USER14> Being a dictator in Minecraft isn't really new. I mean I used rule with an iron fist. Then I didn't care any more and made a pvp server. I'm surprised they don't have the WorldGuard plugin installed. That way they wouldn't have to constantly roll back the map.</comment></comment>


Patterns of Software [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/PatternsOfSoftware.pdf <comment><USER2> Does anyone have a summary or notes of the essay ?

<comment><AUTHOR> I do. I planned to do a blog post about them, but here they are in raw form: [https://1drv.ms/o/s!AvgzOToZAoXyg3ZaoL3_NtU0PMyG](https://1drv.ms/o/s!AvgzOToZAoXyg3ZaoL3_NtU0PMyG)

<comment><USER2> Thanks. Though I should point out your entire notebook is visible, not just this particular note.

<comment><AUTHOR> Damn. Thanks for the head's up!

I've exported it as a pdf here instead: [https://dropfile.to/UbjJsvX](https://dropfile.to/UbjJsvX)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Confronted ethical dilemmas while developing a health community - <AUTHOR>

Have you worked in or for a company that developes web-based health communities and confronted ethical dilemma there? I mean, health communities like patientslike.com offer great opportunities for programmers, database designers and owners of the company (user submitted data can be sold), but health as a concept isn't very strictly defined -- how could it be?
It is quite easy to take some condition (one database table: "condition"), associate some drugs to it (another db-table) and let users tell that they have certain condition and that they have tried this and that drug for the it (few more db-tables). Ofcourse it would be nice, if users could somehow tell that they have some (preprogrammed) symptoms like "brain fog" (another db-table). Add something more that users can select and soon there will be enough information for automatically generated stats.
For example: http://www.patientslikeme.com/symptoms/show/189 (I'm not implying anything the referred site. I'm just using it as an example.)
Researchers and drug manufactures might find the stats useful in some way (by seeing some kind of patterns that other maybe can't) and the others could atleast satisfy their curiosity related to questions like "what are the top 5 in..".
However, from the user's point of view (potential or actual condition/symptom carrier) certain issue might arise: he thinks that he has found "soulmates" (in larger health communities "with blogs and everything"), but even when their symptoms match, they might have nothing in common at the neural level, for example. Actually, both of their conditions could be caused by different enviromental issues, but user couldn't let the System know, what kind of environmental issues might be involved -- and that's why the user keeps trying different kind of medications that other "soulmates" have tried (might take 10 years to go through all of them).
Think about Asperger's (aspies, like they might say). They seem to have something in common, but that might because the definition of the symptoms and their naming is too vague. Same goes for the criteria of many conditions. That would understandable in some sense as we as humans prefer to use common words like "socially handicapped" (instead of something more cryptic).
At this point you should be able to see what I might mean. This question was targeted to those, who has been involved in companies developing web-based health communities, but others too might have an opinion or two. <comment> shane-armstrong Why could the user not let the system know what environmental issues were involved?

Provide users with an input field with an optional brief description. Not only will this allow them to help clarify what you require, but it will also help to match them up with grammar, mentality, style of speech etc.

If executed correctly it could even become the de-facto standard by which users measure their conditions against others and the first step to having develop the links you want.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, more input fields could be added, but it might be decided that, for some obscure reason, they won't be. What might the company's interface designer having friend, who has tendency to become seemingly depressed at times, think at that point?

Other interesting questions include, but are not limited to the following. How was the decision explained to the employees? What kind of opinion did medical advisor for the company have?</comment></comment>


Tell HN: Increase your crawl rate in Google Webmaster Tools - <AUTHOR>

I found that only a small percentage of my site was getting included in the Google index even after submitting a sitemap, however after putting the crawl rate upto the maximum (i.e. allowing Google to hit my server hard) my entire site was pulled in.
In theory changing the rate should have no impact on how much of your site is crawled, but in practice it does.
I'm guessing Google allocates crawling your site a block of wall time and then stops crawling after that period, hence increasing the rate Google can crawl at allows it to reach more of your site.
The end result for my startup CoderStack was dramatic, search traffic increased by an order of magnitude (roughly 10x). <comment><USER2> From my experience, Google does actually seem to do a reasonable job of ensuring they don't over-crawl your site with the automated crawl rates. Increasing the crawl rate above the automatic figure can certainly be helpful - just make sure you know what you're doing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for sharing. I wonder if others experienced similar numbers.

</comment><comment><USER4> I am also facing same problem

<comment><USER4> I increased the crawl rate and now I see considerable increase in the indexed pages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Where is this option?

<comment><USER6> Here's Google's page with instructions and further info - [http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en...](http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=48620)</comment></comment>